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In the Dead of the Night

By JP Robinson

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Geneva, Switzerland
The evening sky above Geneva swore the apocalypse had come. Feather-like clouds curled upward, painted various shades of red by the dying sunlight. To Thomas Steele, it seemed the heavens burned.
As he moved away from the building that housed the administrative department of his watchmaking facility, Thomas caught sight of dark thunderheads on the distant horizon. They scudded northwest toward Britain, pushed along by a stiff breeze.
With a sigh, Thomas tugged the lapels of his brown suit jacket, picked up his briefcase, and stepped into the flow of traffic on Rue Lombard.
Pedestrians and motorized vehicles shared the streets of Geneva, sometimes with devastating consequences. The city’s population had more than doubled as refugees from both sides of the war sought shelter and medical attention in neutral territory. A kaleidoscope of languages buzzed in conversation around him. French. German. Even Italian.
But not English.
Thomas fought a wave of nostalgia as the thought slipped to the forefront of his mind. While business had often led to extended stays in Switzerland over the past thirty years, there had always been the assurance of a return to the quiet pastures of Sussex County, England.
But now that assurance was gone.
Thomas’s footsteps slowed as his mind rolled back through the series of unprecedented events that had unraveled his world. Last summer, Robert Hughes had arrested his daughter-in-law Leila and had wrongfully concluded that Thomas was in league with the Germans. The evidence against Leila had been overwhelming, and she had been condemned to execution.
In a desperate bid to save both Leila and his unborn grandchild, Thomas had used his influence in Switzerland’s political spheres to pressure the British government into releasing Leila. London had ultimately relented, but Thomas had been branded a traitor. If he ever set foot in England again, he was a dead man.
Not that I regret it.
The joy of seeing his son Malcolm reunited with Leila when he had joined them in Switzerland last winter and the warmth that flooded Thomas’s heart each time he held his grandson in his arms more than compensated for the grief of exile.
“But Northshire is our home. It will always be our home,” Thomas said in a forceful whisper. He set his mouth in a grim line as he strode forward, wending his way through the crowds.
His every hope now lay in his son Malcolm. If only—
Someone jolted him from behind. Thomas staggered forward, losing his hold on his briefcase. His hands flew out to break his fall. He cried out as his knees slammed against the uneven cobblestones. Stabs of pain splintered through his shins and radiated up through his thighs.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” a woman said in clear, unaccented German. Laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, she tried to help him up. “My thoughts were so far away, I didn’t see—”
A gunshot echoed off the ancient buildings surrounding the square.
A puff of wind brushed past his head.
The woman’s apology died in a gurgled shriek. Thomas whipped his head around. Clawing helplessly at her throat, she slumped across his back, pushing him down toward the unfeeling stones.
Rolling his shoulders, Thomas shrugged off her deadweight. He pushed himself up to a semi-crouch, ignoring the fire in his knees. Pulse hammering in his throat, he took in a barrage of details at a glance.
The green cross near the door of a pharmacy to his left.
The woman in a nurse’s uniform—white knee-length dress, gray striped shirt, a red cross emblazoned on the white patch across her chest—sprawled across its concrete steps.
Her life blood spurting out of a neat hole in her throat. Passersby screaming. Running in all directions.
Thomas snatched up his discarded briefcase and darted a few steps from the body. He took shelter behind the low-hanging branch of one of several plane trees that pushed up out of the cobblestones. Sucking in deep breaths, he ran his well-trained eyes over the crowd, looking for something—a furtive attempt to conceal a weapon, someone trying to quietly flee the scene—anything.
But he saw nothing.
“God have mercy on that poor woman’s soul.” Thomas glanced back at the body, remorse swelling within his chest. There could be no doubt that he was the target. If he hadn’t stumbled . . .
“You!” Thomas grabbed the arm of a young man who darted past him. “Go get the police.”
The man—an overgrown boy, really—blinked at him from behind a pair of wire-rim glasses. He looked from Thomas to the body and back again with wide eyes. “M-me?”
“I saw some not long ago.” Thomas jerked a thumb toward the opposite end of Rue Lombard. “They’re probably still there.” Thomas spun him around and shoved him forward. “Go. Now!”
“Right. Right.” The lanky teen licked his lips, then scurried away.
The square was largely empty now. A few bold pedestrians remained, staring at the body on the steps with morbid fascination. A clear path lay from the far end of the square to the victim’s corpse as though an invisible hand had drawn an unseen line on top the stones, dividing the horrified spectators into two groups.
Thomas curled his fingers into a tight fist, teeth clenched. The shock of the attack had faded, melting into a familiar desire to find and destroy his enemy. He was a soldier. This was not the first time someone had tried to kill him. Nor was it likely to be the last.
Brushing a few strands of silver hair out of his eyes, Thomas leaned forward. Where is he? Thomas glared at a row of brick apartments that rose above the square like unfeeling collaborators. Any one of the dozens of curtained windows opposite him could have been the killer’s vantage point.
Thomas grunted. Crime was not unheard of in Geneva. Many of the war’s refugees were desperate people. With the increase in population had come an increase in robberies. But this was a different animal altogether.
His mind skimmed through the details, picking up facts as though they were pieces of some invisible puzzle. Thomas laid the irrelevant aside, sifting through the barrage of information until only two main points stood out in his mind.
One: The shooter had uncommon skill. Rue Lombard wasn’t a wide street, but a moving target in a crowd was difficult at best. Only someone very skilled—or very desperate—would attempt it.
Two: Thomas was a man of wealth, power, and politics. The kind of man that attracted enemies like a dog attracted fleas. A skilled assassin would not have come cheaply. But two governments—Britain and Germany—could potentially benefit from his death. He had outmaneuvered both of them, an act that neither party was likely to forgive.
So which one stands the most to gain from my death?
“Get out of the way. Move!” Rough voices from the far end of the square cut through the crowd. Bystanders quickly stepped aside as five Swiss polizei rushed to the scene. A few moments later, a tan ambulance screeched to a stop behind them.
Thomas waited until their milling bodies temporarily obscured the view from the apartments from which the shot had been fired. Then he quietly slipped into the crowd, his mind still churning.
Could this killer have been hired by someone in Switzerland? It was possible. His manipulation of Arthur Hoffman had certainly ruffled some high-ranking feathers. But Switzerland stood to lose much if he died.
A sick feeling akin to nausea rose in his gut as he allowed the most obvious thought to surface. Had the killer been commissioned by London? Had the British empire decided assassination was the only way to chastise its wayward son?
Thomas quickened his pace, turning off Rue Lombard into a small, quiet park, then made his way toward a bench that lay between two plane trees. Women chatted amiably nearby. Children played at a small fountain in the park’s center. Apparently, none of them knew that murder had been committed just a short distance away.
Thomas looked upward once more. The orange in the sky had yielded to a morbid red as though the heavens reflected the blood that had been shed on earth.
“Quite beautiful, isn’t it?”
Thomas stiffened as Arthur Hoffmann’s unwelcome face came into view.
Hoffmann had been the pawn that Thomas had sacrificed to secure Leila’s release. Publicly named a disgrace, Arthur had been expelled from the Swiss government. The man had disappeared for the better part of a year, and Thomas had hoped that the river of life would push them in separate directions.
Apparently, he was to be disappointed.
“What do you want, Arthur?” Thomas straightened, every sense alert. Had Hoffman come to finish the botched job on Rue Lombard? Thomas doubted the spindly erstwhile-politician had the gumption to use a gun, but one could never be too careful.
“Oh, not much.” Loosening the buttons of his black suit jacket, Arthur sat on the unoccupied part of the bench. “Just to talk. After all, that is what we politicians do best.” His gaze slid to Thomas’s face. “But you’d know all about that, now, wouldn’t you?”
“If you’re implying that we’re alike, you are sorely mistaken. I am a businessman, not a politician. For you, time is a way to buy support. For me time is—”
“Running out.” Arthur tapped his fingertips together as if he were praying and looked up again at the gory sky. “Such a sight! I could almost believe today is Judgment Day.”
“I thought you don’t believe in God.”
“Oh . . . but I do.” Arthur’s lips twitched. “But your God is an invisible being with intangible power whereas I . . .” He leaned forward, eyes glittering. “I am a god.”
“You are sick, Arthur. You need help.” Thomas shook his head. “I have neither the time nor the inclination to debate with you.”
“There’s no debate.” Arthur sniggered—a thin, wheezing cross between a cough and a laugh. “Doesn’t your God make things happen through words?”
Thomas hesitated. “Yes.”
“So do I. With words, I bend situations to my will.” Arthur paused. “I may have left politics, but believe me, Thomas, my influence is still very real.”
“And this has something to do with me?”
“Oh yes.” Arthur’s voice dropped to a silken whisper. “But to continue, doesn’t your God punish the wicked?” He spoke louder now, his voice rising with each syllable. “Doesn’t He bring down the proud and destroy every liar?” He didn’t wait for Thomas to reply. “Yes! He does.”
A sense of foreboding gripped Thomas, building on the nausea. “As I said before, my time is valuable. If you have something to say, spit it out and be done.” He stood up, gripping his briefcase. “If there is nothing more, I bid you good day.”
“Thomas, you are about to see that I have the same power.” Arthur rose, jerking a newspaper from the pocket of his black pants. “When you do find the time, take a look at the article on page 21. You’ll find it most enlightening.” His thin lips angled into a vicious smile.
Thomas said nothing.
Hoffmann tossed the paper onto the bench, then rebuttoned his jacket. “I leave you with the words of Saint John the Divine. ‘For the day of His wrath is come and who shall be able to stand?’” Hoffmann sniggered again. “Judgment Day is here, Thomas. And now it is you who will fall.”

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